We are not the only visitors in Japan. I guess the spreadsheets and by-the-quarter-hour itineraries I received from several friends in the months leading up to the trip should have tipped me off.
On that note, Marisa and I didn't really put together a detailed itinerary or, really, any itinerary. We booked lodging in Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto, saved some must-eats on Google Maps, and have generally structured our days around eating and the guilt-filled walks that immediately follow. The nice part is that every neighborhood seems to have a handful of key sights that make the post-meal stroll purposeful and enjoyable.
Not to brag, but we walked something like six miles yesterday. We didn't quite get piss drunk in Piss Alley the night before, although we did do a few quick field sobriety tests in the apartment to make sure there wasn't a delayed hangover on the horizon. We passed and, at 9:30 a.m., made the decision to head to the Tsukiji Fish Market. You've probably heard stories about visitors waking up at 3 a.m. to make their way to the market, sit in a cold waiting space for a few hours and fight off sleep in order to watch the famous fish auctions. We were profoundly not about that life, and instead heeded the advice to go in the late morning and eat at basically any of the sushi restaurants on the outer market.
This is Shou. This is where I had the best sushi of my life. Don't tell anyone about Shou. If I see Shou on TripAdvisor I'm going to be upset at you.
We made it to the market around 10:30, and quickly identified the shops with the highest TripAdvisor ratings. Instead of the hour-plus wait, we hopped in a small line outside of Shou, a 12-seat shop that looked promising. A friendly hostess/server took our orders (the eight-piece tuna special), gave us some miso soup while we waited and smiled through an American couple behind us audibly debating if they should eat at Shou since it was "obviously not as good" as a neighboring restaurant with a massive line. *Watches Chef's Table once*
I love you.
Twenty minutes later we were at the counter and being served our first piece of tuna. The entire experience was incredible. Every piece of tuna was the best piece of that type of tuna that I had ever had before. The marbling and texture on the fatty pieces was unlike anything we had seen or tasted. And, I hope you're sitting down for this one, I even had a little bit of morning sake to top it all off.
Since yesterday was our last full day in Tokyo, we knew we had some work to do to check off some additional boxes on our culinary list. The sushi left us satisfied but not completely full, which is often my intention but rarely my reality. With that, we headed to Shibuya in search of second lunch
We exited the train station and found ourselves in Shibuya Crossing, a famous scramble crossing where a high density of pedestrians cross the street from all directions. It was fun to do once and really epitomized the TV-version of Tokyo that I grew up with. Tall buildings, overstimulating billboards, and tons of shops and restaurants.
The next stop was Ichiran Ramen, which usually has a long line during peak hours but had available seating for our early afternoon lunch. This place, like many ramen spots in Japan, requires patrons to order at ramen vending machines. You punch in your requests, grab your small paper ticket and head to your own private slurping booth, which is semi-enclosed by a small wooden partition. The ticket is placed in front of a small window before it is taken from a member of the Ichiran staff. After just a few minutes, a fresh bowl of ramen appeared at my window. Once again, efficient, delicious and requiring minimal interaction.
If you thought the explicit English instructions were enough to make this easy on me, think again!
I am going to say something incredibly elitist but let me rock. This ramen was very good, but it was not as good as Marukin Ramen, a restaurant that only exists in Tokyo and (SPOILER ALERT!!!) Portland. A special tip of the cap to Marukin in Pine Street Market, which out-ramens some of the more popular Tokyo ramen.
Two lunches deep and I was feeling a bit squishy. While in Shibuya, we decided to do some light shopping before walking to Harajuku and making our way down Takeshita Dori. Folks, this street was packed. I didn't really understand the appeal, but I am not a teenage girl and that, I am told, is the target demo of this area.
Needing a cleanse from crowds and consumerism (give this guy a Pulitzer), we kept up the walking theme and made our way to the Meiji Shrine, which neighbored the beautiful Yoyogi Park. The shrine was gorgeous, as were the forested pathways that led to it. I love how easy it is to quickly escape the dense city streets and find some tranquility. Tokyo is definitely no less busy than New York, but I do find escaping the chaos to be much simpler.
At this point, it had been two hours since our last meal. There was an important decision to make: eat at a well-known tempura restaurant (Tempura Tsunahachi) and risk the consequences or go home and rest our hogs. We chose tempura.
There was a strict no-phone rule, so I couldn't take photos of the lightly battered fish and vegetables. I know I'm a broken record, but I promise I will tell you if the food isn't good. This was really fucking good, and put into perspective how bad much of the American tempura is. Like all Japanese styles of cooking, this is an art. There is more involved than throwing a piece of broccoli into the deep fryer.
I mentioned potential consequences above. We didn't make it back until about 6 p.m., and, after a nap, knew there was no chance in hell we could stomach any more food or drink. So we called it a night, with three neighborhoods, three full meals and six miles of walking pushing us to bed.
We are traveling to Osaka today and got off to an early start. I know I was cocky about how easy it was to navigate the train system. That was before I went to Tokyo station and had to take an intercity train. 8:45 a.m. on a Sunday is apparently not early for Tokyo station, but after purchasing the wrong tickets and overcoming a strong language barrier to correct our mistakes, we got on the bullet train for Osaka.
I'm hungry.